Fire trucks were delayed about four minutes as they waited three blocks from the blaze at 577 Orange Ave. for a Florida East Coast Railway Co. train to rumble past, said Lt. Ian Gurney. Normally, the response time would have been about two minutes, he said.

The two-story, eight-bedroom wooden structure built in the early 1900s was engulfed in flames when firefighters from the Orange Avenue station and units from the station at Madison and Washington avenues arrived about 2 a.m. Inside and outside stairways were already destroyed and holes were burned in every room, Gurney said. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in about two hours.

Damage to the building owned by Murtice Burch, Daytona Beach, is estimated at $35,000.

All but one of the 10 to 12 tenants, who ranged from children to elderly, escaped injury. All found temporary shelter with friends or relatives, or in one case, at a government housing project, Gurney said.

Hessional Rowe, 47, was treated at Halifax Hospital Medical Center for first- and second-degree burns to his face, arms and chest. He was sleeping when the fire started but was awakened by a neighbor. Rowe told firefighters that as he was fleeing from the inferno, he looked over his shoulder and saw a wall of flames in the center of the house.

Two minutes later, the building was totally engulfed in flames, Gurney said. With the wind blowing from the south and the windows and doors open in the boardinghouse, Gurney said, the firefighters would not have been able to save the building even without the delay caused by the train.

The cause of the blaze is still under investigation by the Daytona Beach Fire Department.